This is Us: A Vision of Biblical Fatherhood

Be aware, informed, and alert.

Be on the alert. . .

Be aware of problems and opportunities.    

• Every problem is an opportunity to make it better.
• Don’t live with your head in the sand unaware of what is going on around you.
• Don’t be passive. One of the great sins of manhood is passivity.  That was really the first sin of Adam was passivity.  He stood around being a lazy bum while his wife was being tempted by Satan in the most crucial spiritual battle of all history.  He just decided he would sit this thing out and see what happens. 

Be informed about the gospel and its implications. 

Don’t live without understanding the gospel and the world view implications that it has.  We can see the same problem, but have a multitude of solutions to offer.   In business or education, that might work alright; but in spiritual matters and spiritual brokenness, only the gospel works.  There is no man-made solution to a spiritual problem.  That’s why Paul said that  I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a partaker of it.  1 Cor. 9:23

Be alert to threats and the return of Christ.

1 Peter 5:8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Some might call this anticipatory leadership.  An ability to anticipate what is coming.

A godly father is also alert to the return of Christ.  He anticipates Christ’s return and he prepares his children for when Jesus will come one day or when they will stand before Him one day.

Be rooted in the gospel.

. . .stand firm in the faith

Faith could be your act of believing, in other words keep on believing.  Or it could mean what you believe, the faith. Both are important.  Most scholars believe that this is the content of your belief or the Gospel faith;  Jude 3 Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.

Know the gospel. 

1 Corinthians 15:3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third dayaccording to the Scriptures, 

Be transformed by the gospel. 

Martin Luther’s aha moment with justification by faith.  Be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind  Romans 12:2

Be steadfast in the gospel. 

1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.

 When you doubt other things, don’t doubt the gospel.  Choose to believe it. Do not let lesser things pull you down off the solid rock of biblical doctrine, the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ, sufficiency of Scripture, and the Gospel.

Act like a man.

. . .act like men,. . .

Be men of courage.  Some translate “act courageously” making it genderless.

 “Be men of courage.” The Greek verb and rises the in the imperative plural means “acquit yourselves like men.” This is the only place in the New Testament where the verb appears, yet the sense is sufficiently clear. No soldier in the army of Jesus Christ may be fainthearted; in his presence, there is no place for cowards and weaklings.

Don’t act like a child.

1 Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.

Be strong.

Be strong

Physical strength is not what is being referred to here. 

Believe the right thing.

Do the right thing.

Hold to your convictions. Even when it is not easy.  That requires strength.  A common exhortation in the Bible is to be strong and courageous. 

Love in all you do.

Let all that you do be done in love

1 Corinthians 13:13  . . .the greatest of these is love.

Love trumps everything.  Without love, we are not His children. 

Love God.

Love your wife.

Ephesians 5:25  Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.

The greatest gift that you can give to your kids is to love their mother.

Love your children.

Ephesians 6:4  Fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord

Don’t provoke your children to anger.  It’s hard not to match the energy or emotion of a teenage boy that is trying to escape his cocoon.

Deuteronomy 6:7 “You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. 8 “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. 9 “You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Leadership without love is dictatorship.  Discipline without love is harsh.

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